Drill, Baby, Drill

Commentary by Pete du Pont

September 19, 2008

Energy is essential in America, and 40% of what we use comes from oil and 23% from natural gas. That comes to about 21 million barrels of oil and 64 billion cubic feet of natural gas each day. Domestic oil production is declining--down nearly half since 1970--so imports are up, from one-third of what we needed in 1970 to just under 60% today. So we need to discover and access more of our own energy resources.